Love, Coconuts, and Drools

          Love, Coconuts, and drools.

                                  ♥♥

When we got married, it was a means to an end. I mean, we didn’t even like each other that much.

I met Joe in a “trotro.” I was in the car when he came in, sweating profusely. When I saw him drenched in sweat, I shifted to cover the empty space available so he wouldn’t fill the spot beside me.

Our eyes met for a second, and I gave him a scornful look, but he still dragged himself to sit beside me.

The next minute he was calling the “choofi” seller from the window side, where I sat.

“Pass me the choofi” (turkey butt), he said authoritatively.

The traffic was hectic that morning, and he dozed off after eating his “turkey butt,” then drooled all over me. I was wondering why someone would be dozing off early in the morning.

I shrugged my shoulders, and he woke up. He offered to wipe his drool off, and I flared my hands at him. I guess that embarrassed him a little because he coiled up.

Funny enough, we were going to the same junction.

We went our separate ways, and he never apologized back in the ‘trotro’ or when we got down.

Weeks down the lane, I was nearly robbed at Madina Zongo Junction at knifepoint.

I was on my way back from work at 1 am, and I got ‘jumped’. I screamed for help, and that stretch of the street was quiet and dark.

From nowhere, Joe appeared and chased them with a cutlass.

Yes, a cutlass. Apparently, he is a coconut seller at the junction and came back to pick up his truck after dropping off some of his merchandise at home. He lived nearby.

We met a few more times in the market, where he was still in his coconut business. Then it was just “Hi and how are you?”

He walked up to me one morning while I was waiting for my car while he was pulling his truck to the market and said, “Let’s get married.”

I looked up at him with scorn and asked, “When?”

His smile faded, and he said, “I’m being evicted by my landlord, and I need a place to lay my head.”

“Is that the whole point of the marriage?” – I asked.

Joe nodded, and I saw myself saying, “Yes, let’s do it next month.”

We got married the next month—nothing big and fancy, even though we barely knew each other or liked each other.

First off, I didn’t like his funky and sweaty smell, but I just knew it was the right thing to do after he rescued me from those robbers.

Also read: He returned my bride price and moved her into our bed

Today is our fifth anniversary, and he asked if I’d change anything about him or how quickly we got married.

I looked at him, smiled and said, – the drooling. Yes, he still drools when he sleeps in my arms.

We gambled, but we are five years down the journey and selling branded coconuts while we explore our goals.

Now here I am, sipping on coconut juice from a complete stranger whose funky smell I fell in love with.

Becky, Winneba

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